Tag: road

Some countries are scaling down or scrapping entire projects that are part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative amid mounting financial concerns over the continent-spanning venture. That revised stance not only confirms global fears over the terms of BRI financing, it could also indicate that developing countries are now more willing to prioritize sovereign interests over their need for foreign investment. But critics see it as a means to benefit China’s military, increase opportunities for Chine

Some countries are scaling down or scrapping entire projects that are part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative amid mounting financial concerns over the continent-spanning venture.

In recent months, developing nations such as Pakistan, Malaysia, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Sierra Leone have either canceled or backed away from previously negotiated BRI commitments, citing worries over high project costs and their impact on national debt and the economy.

That revised stance not only confirms global fears over the terms of BRI financing, it could also indicate that developing countries are now more willing to prioritize sovereign interests over their need for foreign investment.

The BRI — Beijing’s signature foreign policy program — is the superpower’s attempt to stretch its economic power across the globe through the construction of maritime and overland transportation links across Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Europe. But critics see it as a means to benefit China’s military, increase opportunities for Chinese companies and help Beijing gain political leverage.

Under the trillion-dollar endeavor, Chinese state-owned entities flush with cash offer participating countries cheap loans and credit to build large-scale projects such as ports and railways. These arrangements are usually negotiated government-to-government with below-market interest rates but many nations are growing wary over their debt loads.

Tesla is cutting its full-time staff headcount by approximately 7 percent, as it ramps up production of its Model 3 sedans, CEO Elon Musk said Friday. Tesla shares fell almost 8 percent in premarket trade following the news. In an email to employees, Musk notes that the company faces a “very difficult” road ahead in its long-term goal to sell affordable renewable energy products at scale, noting the company is younger than other players in the industry. “Tesla will need to make these cuts while

Tesla is cutting its full-time staff headcount by approximately 7 percent, as it ramps up production of its Model 3 sedans, CEO Elon Musk said Friday.

The announcement come on the back of various cost-cutting measures the company has made of late, as it looks to reduce the price of its products and boost margins.

Tesla shares fell almost 8 percent in premarket trade following the news.

In an email to employees, Musk notes that the company faces a “very difficult” road ahead in its long-term goal to sell affordable renewable energy products at scale, noting the company is younger than other players in the industry.

“Tesla will need to make these cuts while increasing the Model 3 production rate and making many manufacturing engineering improvements in the coming months,” Musk said in the company update.

“Attempting to build affordable clean energy products at scale necessarily requires extreme effort and relentless creativity, but succeeding in our mission is essential to ensure that the future is good, so we must do everything we can to advance the cause,” he added.

There was ‘frustration’ in Kim Jong Un’s message: Expert 4:50 AM ET Wed, 2 Jan 2019 | 03:00But to do so, Pyongyang needs help from its rich neighbors. The nuclear-armed nation is seeking more than $7.7 million in investment, the Seoul-based online newspaper NK News reported last month, citing information from a website run by North Korea’s foreign trade ministry. Xi’s Belt and Road project offers the perfect answer to those needs. Pyongyang “would love to be part of Belt and Road,” Dane Chamorro

But to do so, Pyongyang needs help from its rich neighbors. The nuclear-armed nation is seeking more than $7.7 million in investment, the Seoul-based online newspaper NK News reported last month, citing information from a website run by North Korea’s foreign trade ministry.

Xi’s Belt and Road project offers the perfect answer to those needs. China has historically been Pyongyang’s largest trading partner.

Pyongyang “would love to be part of Belt and Road,” Dane Chamorro, a senior partner in the Asia Pacific division of Control Risks, a consulting firm specializing in politics told CNBC on Friday. Kim’s government is waiting for an invitation so his country can get assistance on the construction of railway links and ports and other facilities, Chamorro said.

Beijing also seems keen on Pyongyang’s inclusion, with the Chinese government inviting a North Korean delegation to attend a Belt and Road summit in 2017 — but it’s unlikely to take any action for now.

Including Pyongyang in the BRI is “probably more trouble than it’s worth” at the present moment, said Mintaro Oba, a former U.S. State Department official who specialized in the Koreas during the administration of former President Barack Obama.

For one, sanctions still remain in place. Beijing, however, has called for those penalties to be eased.

China is addressing ‘structural issues’ in trade war with US: Economist12 Hours AgoRobin Xing of Morgan Stanley says China has begun to address structural issues in the U.S.-China trade war, and may be able to provide a “road map” that both parties can use to verify Beijing’s progress by the March deadline.

China is addressing ‘structural issues’ in trade war with US: Economist

12 Hours Ago

Robin Xing of Morgan Stanley says China has begun to address structural issues in the U.S.-China trade war, and may be able to provide a “road map” that both parties can use to verify Beijing’s progress by the March deadline.

China’s massive Belt and Road Initiative infrastructure program has long been viewed as a platform to project Chinese power across the globe, despite official assertions to the contrary. Last week, the Times said it had reviewed a confidential plan about China’s military projects in Pakistan under the Belt and Road. That reveals how the world’s second-largest economy “is for the first time explicitly tying a Belt and Road proposal to its military ambitions,” the Times said. He called the Times’

China’s massive Belt and Road Initiative infrastructure program has long been viewed as a platform to project Chinese power across the globe, despite official assertions to the contrary. New findings from the New York Times have now reinforced that argument, giving more weight to the idea that the investment plan may not purely be the economic project that Beijing insists.

Last week, the Times said it had reviewed a confidential plan about China’s military projects in Pakistan under the Belt and Road. According to the proposal, a special economic zone under the BRI’s China-Pakistan Economic Corridor will be created to produce fighter jets while navigation systems and other military hardware will be jointly built at factories in Pakistan. That reveals how the world’s second-largest economy “is for the first time explicitly tying a Belt and Road proposal to its military ambitions,” the Times said.

In response, Lijian Zhao, deputy chief of mission at the Chinese embassy in Islamabad, took to Twitter to protest the newspaper’s claims. He called the Times’ report “Western propaganda” and emphasized that the bilateral economic corridor was purely economic in nature.

For politics watchers, however, the Times’ story strengthens deep-rooted suspicions of the BRI as a tool for the People’s Liberation Army, China’s armed forces.

Uber’s self-driving cars are back on the road Thursday, nine months after a fatal accident in Arizona stalled development and pushed the company into lengthy reviews. It previously vowed to improve operations before returning self-driving vehicles to the road. A self-driving Uber SUV recognized a pedestrian crossing the street but failed to slow down for the designated back-up driver to manually brake in time. The National Transportation Safety Board investigated the accident and found gaps in U

Uber’s self-driving cars are back on the road Thursday, nine months after a fatal accident in Arizona stalled development and pushed the company into lengthy reviews.

The company says it conducted a “top-to-bottom” audit of its safety policies. It previously vowed to improve operations before returning self-driving vehicles to the road. Uber pulled all testing in March, after one of the company’s autonomous vehicles struck and killed a pedestrian.

A self-driving Uber SUV recognized a pedestrian crossing the street but failed to slow down for the designated back-up driver to manually brake in time. The National Transportation Safety Board investigated the accident and found gaps in Uber’s systems.

“Over the past nine months, we’ve made safety core to everything we do,” Eric Meyhofer, head of Uber Advanced Technologies, said in a statement. “We implemented recommendations from our review processes, spanning technical, operational and organizational improvements. This required a lot of introspection and took some time. Now we are ready to move forward.”

The company is resuming road tests in Pittsburgh, with approval from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation. The company is also resuming manual testing, with a human driver directing the vehicle, in San Francisco and Toronto.

“We’ve reviewed and improved our testing program to ensure that our vehicles are considerate and defensive drivers,” Meyhofer said. “Before any vehicles are on public roads, they must pass a series of more than 70 scenarios without safety-related failures on our test track. We are confident we’ve met that bar as we reintroduce self-driving vehicles to Pittsburgh roadways today.”

Monday marks the inauguration of a 35-year concession agreement between Abu Dhabi Ports and China Ocean Shipping Company (Cosco) Shipping Ports. The deal will allow Cosco to operate and develop a new container terminal in Khalifa Port to support trade flows expected from China’s 60-country-wide infrastructure project. The belt and road initiative is a vast project designed to link China with much of Asia, Europe the Middle East and Africa, and to increase Beijing’s political and trade influence

Monday marks the inauguration of a 35-year concession agreement between Abu Dhabi Ports and China Ocean Shipping Company (Cosco) Shipping Ports. The deal will allow Cosco to operate and develop a new container terminal in Khalifa Port to support trade flows expected from China’s 60-country-wide infrastructure project.

The belt and road initiative is a vast project designed to link China with much of Asia, Europe the Middle East and Africa, and to increase Beijing’s political and trade influence globally.

The port, which is situated halfway between Abu Dhabi and Dubai, now serves over 25 shipping lines and has links to 70 international destinations. Al Shamisi said that makes it a “strategic location” for trade, not only within the United Arab Emirates and the Middle East, but the wider ecosystem.

“It’s huge … We are not serving the Middle East per se, but we are serving the North Africa Indian subcontinent and we are transitioning point to all of these destinations,” said Al Shamisi.

“Having such infrastructure where the biggest ships can enter and use Khalifa Port as a hub, it will serve the one belt one road, and it’s actually the heart of the one belt one road,” he added.

But as the Jan. 27, 2018, date neared and Mueller provided the topics he wanted to discuss, Trump’s lawyers balked. The prolonged negotiation speaks to the high stakes for Trump, Mueller’s investigation of his campaign and the presidency. The process took a significant step forward this week when Trump’s lawyers handed over the president’s written answers to some of Mueller’s questions. But it soon became clear that Mueller would want to interview Trump, given his involvement in several events u

The date had been picked, the location too, and the plan was penciled in: President Donald Trump would be whisked from the White House to Camp David on a quiet winter Saturday to answer questions from special counsel Robert Mueller’s team.

But as the Jan. 27, 2018, date neared and Mueller provided the topics he wanted to discuss, Trump’s lawyers balked. Attorney John Dowd then fired off a searing letter disputing Mueller’s authority to question the president. The interview was off.

Nearly a year later, Trump has still not spoken directly to Mueller’s team — and may never. Through private letters, tense meetings and considerable public posturing, the president’s lawyers have engaged in a tangled, tortured back-and-forth with the special counsel to prevent the president from sitting down for a face-to-face with enormous political and legal consequences.

The prolonged negotiation speaks to the high stakes for Trump, Mueller’s investigation of his campaign and the presidency. Any questioning of a president in a criminal investigation tests the limit of executive authority. Putting this president on the record also tests his ability to stick to the facts and risks a constitutional showdown.

The process took a significant step forward this week when Trump’s lawyers handed over the president’s written answers to some of Mueller’s questions. The arrangement was a hard-fought compromise. Trump answered only questions about Russian interference in the 2016 election and not questions about whether he has tried to obstruct the broader investigation into potential coordination between Russia and his presidential campaign. It’s unclear whether Mueller intends to push for more — either in writing or in person.

Special counsel spokesman Peter Carr declined comment.

Even those written answers were months in the making.

In the months following Mueller’s May 2017 appointment, the White House pledged its cooperation, believing it the fastest way to end the investigation. The administration produced thousands of documents sought by the special counsel and made close Trump aides — including his legal counsel, chief of staff and press secretary — available for questioning. White House lawyer Ty Cobb predicted the investigation could conclude by the end of that year.

But it soon became clear that Mueller would want to interview Trump, given his involvement in several events under scrutiny. The president had fired FBI Director James Comey, harangued his attorney general over his recusal from the Russia investigation and dictated a misleading statement about a Trump Tower meeting involving his son and a Kremlin-connected lawyer.

But Trump lawyers Dowd and Jay Sekulow moved cautiously.

The last time a president is known to have been interviewed in a criminal investigation was nearly 15 years ago, and a commander-in-chief has not been subpoenaed before a grand jury since 1998, when President Bill Clinton was summoned in the Whitewater case. Trump’s lawyers were mindful such an interview would be a minefield for a president who often misstates the facts. They set out to avoid it however possible, even if it could lead to resisting a subpoena and bringing on a court fight over presidential power.

But first they tried to head off a request. Trump’s lawyers staked out a bold constitutional argument, declaring they considered his actions as president outside a prosecutor’s bounds. Mueller had no right to question the president on any of his decisions made at the White House, they argued, saying any outside scrutiny of those choices would curb a president’s executive powers.

At the same time, they worked to undermine Mueller’s case should he choose to challenge that argument. They furnished a trove of White House documents about key moments in the investigation in hopes of undercutting any claim that he could only get the information he needed by questioning Trump, according to people familiar with the strategy.

Trump had other plans.

As his lawyers plotted to dig in against any interview, he pushed for one, believing it would exonerate him. In January, he burst into a reporters’ briefing with chief of staff John Kelly and insisted he was eager to speak to Mueller. He might do so in weeks, he said, “subject to my lawyers and all of that.”

“I would love to do that — I’d like to do it as soon as possible,” Trump said.

What he didn’t mention was that his attorneys had already discussed, and scuttled, the planned interview with Mueller. That process had even progressed to discussing logistics with Kelly, who advised of ways White House officials could get people in and out of the building without the press knowing.

But the interest cooled after Mueller team prosecutor James Quarles dictated over the phone 16 topics Mueller wanted to cover, including Trump’s interactions with Comey, his knowledge of national security adviser Michael Flynn’s interview with the FBI and his involvement in the Trump Tower statement. Dowd responded that the answers could all be found in documents and witness statements provided to Mueller. He then canceled the interview and days later drafted a feisty letter contesting the interview’s appropriateness and offering extensive explanations on the incidents in question.

The investigation has been “a considerable burden for the president and his office, has endangered the safety and security of our country, and has interfered with the president’s ability to both govern domestically and conduct foreign affairs,” Dowd wrote.

In the following months, Trump told some of his closest confidants that he still wanted to interview with Mueller, according to four White House officials and Republicans close to the White House who asked for anonymity because they were not permitted to publicly discuss private conversations. The president repeatedly insisted he had done nothing wrong and believed he could convince Mueller of that.

He told one confidant last spring he was frustrated his lawyers didn’t believe he should do it and snapped that he didn’t understand what was taking so long, according to one Republican in contact with the White House.

Tensions were on display at a March meeting where Dowd and Sekulow met with Mueller to discuss the need for an interview. Mueller said he needed to know if Trump had a “corrupt intent” when he fired Comey, such as by intending to stymie the investigation, according to a person familiar with the encounter. Dowd responded that the question was ridiculous and the answer was obviously no. Investigators at the same meeting raised the prospect of a subpoena if Trump didn’t cooperate, Dowd has said.

Later that month, Mueller’s team produced its most detailed list of questions yet — dozens, in different categories from Trump’s time as a candidate, through the transition period and into his presidency.

Trump’s own views soon began to shift. He had his first misgivings in mid-April after FBI raids on his personal lawyer Michael Cohen, thinking they were a sign that he could “not trust” Mueller, according to one of the Republicans close to Trump who spoke with the AP.

As Rudy Giuliani joined Trump’s legal team in April, the White House settled into a new strategy: Drag out the interview drama for months, and use that time to ratchet up attacks on Mueller’s credibility and complaints about the cost and time of the probe, according to the officials and advisers familiar with the strategy.

Giuliani led the charge. His scattershot arguments sometimes frustrated others in the White House, as he frequently moved the goalposts as to what would be required to have an interview. But the effect was to ensure the process would drag out longer.

Trump, meanwhile, continued complaining about the investigation even as his lawyers quietly negotiated acceptable interview terms.

A key breakthrough occurred earlier this fall when Mueller’s team said it would accept written answers on Russian election interference and collusion. The concession ensured that Mueller would get at least some on-the-record response from Trump. Prosecutors tabled questions about obstruction, reserving the right to return to that area later.

Giuliani seemed to foreclose future dialogue Tuesday, saying, “It is time to bring this inquiry to a conclusion.”

Thursday, Americans all across the country will sit down with friends and family to do the same thing: celebrate Thanksgiving. So how many turkeys will the collective country eat? How many calories is that and how much will the meal cost? And how many people will hit the road for the holiday? Here’s your Thanksgiving by the numbers.

At a blockade in the southeastern department of Savoie, a driver panicked when protesters surrounded her car and she accelerated, hitting and killing a female demonstrator, French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said. At least 227 people were injured across France, including six seriously, according to the interior ministry, which estimated that nearly 283,000 demonstrators took part in Saturday’s protests. By early evening, 73 people had been taken into custody, and some demonstrators wer

At a blockade in the southeastern department of Savoie, a driver panicked when protesters surrounded her car and she accelerated, hitting and killing a female demonstrator, French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said.

At least 227 people were injured across France, including six seriously, according to the interior ministry, which estimated that nearly 283,000 demonstrators took part in Saturday’s protests. A policeman also sustained serious injuries.

By early evening, 73 people had been taken into custody, and some demonstrators were still in place at nightfall. Police used tear gas to clear the entrance to a tunnel under the Mont-Blanc mountain in the Alps, and to push back demonstrators near the Elysee Palace in Paris and in the centre of Lyon.

Protestors chanted “Macron, resign” and some sported slogans such as “give us back our purchasing power” on the back of the yellow high-visibility vests, which have come to symbolise the movement.

“There are just too many taxes in France,” said Veronique Lestrade, a demonstrator on the outskirts of Paris, who said her family was struggling to make ends meet.